Editorial: Obama legacy hangs on the economy

President Barack Obama speaks in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2013. The president will ask Congress to come up with tens of billions of dollars in short-term spending cuts and tax revenue to put off the automatic across the board cuts that are scheduled to kick in March 1. CHARLES DHARAPAK, ASSOCIATED PRESS

President Obama has a problem. When it was announced last week that the nation's economy had actually shrunk in the fourth quarter of 2012 (GDP decreased by 0.1 percent), it undermined the essence of the president's long-standing economic message, which, broadly, has gone as follows: After inheriting a catastrophic situation, I have begun to right the ship. The recovery has not been spectacular, and what progress has been made has been hard-won, but it has nonetheless been consistent.

The nation hasn't seen negative economic growth since the second quarter of 2009, when the president's preferred tactic of blaming his predecessor for the wreckage was still utterly plausible, if not an all-encompassing explanation. With these new numbers arriving in the early days of his second term, the White House is running short on alibis – though it wasted no time in pinning culpability on congressional Republicans.

Critics of the president's economic performance (in whose ranks we are often counted), can occasionally be overblown in their judgments. We'll concede, for instance, that Mr. Obama did inherit a miserable economic landscape upon assuming office, even if the excuse since has become shopworn. That factor, however, should not add a handicap to his score. A president who goes out of his way to cultivate comparisons to predecessors like Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt can't plausibly blame his failures on being overmatched by circumstances.

In fact, we lay much of the blame precisely on the towering ambition that causes Mr. Obama to seek such historical parallels. If there has been one consistent theme of this administration, it has been its desire to reshape American institutions along progressive lines. From the Keynesian inclinations of the stimulus package to Obamacare to the recent income tax increases, the controlling instinct has always been towards expanding state power.

Mr. Obama, of course, is entitled to pursue this vision for the nation. As he is fond of reminding us, he won – and that has consequences. It's remarkable, however, that this trend has often led him to treat the flagging economy – surely a top priority for any conscientious president – as little more than an unwelcome distraction from his progressive empire-building.

Despite the fact that the issue is currently at the forefront of the American mind, for example, the president only dedicated a single line of his inaugural address to the topic. That line: "economic recovery has begun." That kind of rhetorical whispering isn't going to cut it anymore.

In the months and years ahead, Mr. Obama inevitably will turn his focus toward his "legacy," the controlling obsession of nearly all second-term presidents. He ought to consider that, no matter how he refashions the federal government along progressive lines, that legacy will be compromised if he doesn't leave office with the nation on stronger economic footing.

The present moment is likely his last opportunity to do so in a meaningful fashion. Mr. Obama ought to begin the task by resurrecting his old conciliatory persona and working with Democrats and Republicans alike to reform the tax code, address the hemorrhaging liabilities of our entitlement system and confront the crushing burden of the national debt.

No president who fails to address the consuming issue of his era can plausibly aspire to historical greatness. For that reason, Mr. Obama's legacy hangs very much in the balance.

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